Religion or Ethnicity?: Jewish Identities in Evolution, ed. Zvi Gitelman (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2009).

I began my search knowing that I wanted to explore Judaism, but I was unsure what aspect of Judaism I wanted to explore. The first term I entered for my search was simply “Judaism,” so that I could get an idea of a topic I might want to explore. With this initial search I saw books available on secularism in Judaism, and decided that was the topic I wanted to find a book on. The next term I entered in was “Secularism in Judaism,” which yielded no results, so I cut down the search term to “Secular Judaism.” Using this term I found a book that discusses the notion of Judaism as a religion versus an ethnicity, as well as secularism in Judaism, Religion or Ethnicity?: Jewish Identities in Evolution.

After briefly flipping through the book and skimming some pages, I found that the Religion or Ethnicity?  contains an interesting discourse on Judaism in the pre-modern era, as well as the origins of secular Judaism and how to define Jewish identity. I found the discourse on secular Judaism and Jewish identity particularly interesting, as I consider myself Jewish even though I do not practices and rarely attend services of an kind. The book’s discussion of the challenges of defining Jewish identity, such as Jewish identity being defined differently in various parts of the world and groups of individuals with different practices and beliefs all identifying themselves as Jewish, seemed to fit with some of our previous readings on Conservative, Orthodox, Ultra-Orthodox, and Reform Judaism.

Overall, the book offered what I expected to find, although I was pleased to discover that the book had a larger focus on secular Judaism than I initially anticipated based on the title. Around where I found Religion or Ethnicity? I also saw books on Zionism, modern Judaism, and the displacement of Jews throughout history. There were also more books addressing Jewish identity. If I were to write my paper on secularism in Judaism, I would consider using Religion or Ethnicity?: Jewish Identities in Evolution as a resource.